


Slipping Through Your Fingers

by bettername2come



Series: Protecting the Protector [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-28 22:23:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14459058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettername2come/pseuds/bettername2come
Summary: The one thing May Parker and Tony Stark have in common? Freaking out about Peter Parker no matter what else is going on around them.Spoilers for Infinity War ending.





	Slipping Through Your Fingers

**Author's Note:**

> It occurred to me that nothing in Infinity War proved my earlier Spider-Man piece incorrect. Hence, series.

It was the call May Parker had dreaded ever since she caught Peter standing in his room in the Spider-Man suit. Maybe not the exact phone call. She had always imagined it would be in the middle of the night ( _Ben’s call was in the middle of the night_ ), when Peter had snuck out of his room to catch thieves or some new psychopath in a mechanical suit who really should have been fighting Tony Stark, not a fifteen-year-old kid who still had a ten o’clock curfew on weeknights. It wasn’t supposed to happen in broad daylight. It wasn’t supposed to happen when he was on a field trip to the freaking Museum of Modern Art. She’d signed a permission slip for crying out loud. This wasn’t a Spider-Man thing, it was a Peter Parker thing. He was supposed to be safe as Peter Parker. But May was beginning to realize there really wasn’t a distinction between the two.

The emergency alert preceded the phone call by about two minutes. The notification on her phone said _Unidentified alien spacecraft sighted. If possible, seek underground shelter immediately._ She’d cursed under her breath, grabbed her purse and made it to halfway to the closest subway station before her phone rang, the caller ID displaying a number she didn’t recognize.

“Hello?”

“Is this May Parker?”

There was a nervousness in the man’s voice that set May’s heart even faster than it had at the mention of a spaceship. “This is she,” she said, her voice coming out calmer than she felt as ran towards the station.

“Um, this is Mr. Harrington, Peter’s teacher. Uh, have you, have you heard from Peter?”

May stopped dead in her track. Someone crashed into her from behind her, but she barely felt it. “What do you mean, have I heard from Peter? He’s supposed to be with you.” But even as she says it, she knows exactly what Peter did. Saw danger and ran straight for her like he’s done since he was seven years old, and, God, what were she and Ben thinking raising this child so well that he had to be such a damn hero?

“He was. We were on the bus. We were driving. We were driving and we saw the spaceship and then Peter was just gone, and I don’t know if it was the aliens or- “

“It’s fine. I mean – “ she took a deep breath – “it’s not fine, but it’s not your fault. Just take care of the other kids and call me as soon as you find out anything and tell Ned that if he knows something, he needs to call me _right now_ , okay?”

“Yes, Mrs. Parker.”

May hung up the phone. She started running again, reminding herself that she really needed to hit the gym more often if these things were gonna keep happening. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a live news report – Spider-Man and Iron Man fighting aliens in Washington Square Park. She breathed out a sigh of relief as she ducked into the subway entrance. Peter was alive, and he wasn’t fighting alone.

_You better protect my kid, Stark._

**

He failed him. Tony failed Peter Parker, along with half the fucking universe, but somehow the weight of Peter’s loss outweighs them all. Maybe because the rest of the universe hadn’t followed Tony into space or because he hadn’t recruited the rest of the universe into the Avengers in the first place or because Peter was the only member of the universe who had turned to ash in Tony’s hands while begging for help like the lost child that he was. God, why hadn’t the kid just stayed on the damn field trip? But even as Tony thought that he realized it wouldn’t have done Peter any good. They still would have lost to Thanos. Peter would still be lost, only he would have faded away in his Aunt May’s arms instead. If there even was still was an Aunt May. He had known something like this was coming for years, he could’ve been more prepared, he could’ve stopped this. They all could have saved them, no matter what Strange said about the odds of that happening. They had beaten the odds before, they always beaten the odds. Against the Chitauri, against Ultron, against Hydra.

Tony was still sitting on the ground next to the spot where Peter had disappeared when a voice pulled him out of his grief.

“What did he mean, it was the only way?”

Tony looked up. He had almost forgotten that the strange blue woman (robot?) was even there. “What?”

“When he gave Thanos the stone in exchange for your life, he said it was the only way,” Nebula said. “The only way to do what? Kill Thanos? Undo his work? He spoke to _you_ , what did he want you to do?”

The only way. Strange had said there was only one way to win this. This was the way, whatever they had to do they could defeat Thanos. And if they couldn’t save the universe, well, the least they could do was avenge it.

“I don’t know,” Tony said. “But whatever it is, we’re going to have to go to earth to find out.”


End file.
